Murdaugh murder convictions overturned by South Carolina Supreme Court
The South Carolina Supreme Court has unanimously ruled to overturn the 2023 double murder conviction of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh.
In its 27-page, 5-0 ruling Wednesday, the S.C. Supreme Court said the actions of former Colleton County Court Clerk Rebecca “Becky” Hill denied “Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
Murdaugh’s case will now return to circuit court, according to the ruling. He is accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and younger son Paul at the Murdaugh rural estate in Colleton County on the evening of June 7, 2021.
“Both the State and Murdaugh’s defense skillfully presented their cases to the jury as the trial court deftly presided over this complicated and high-profile matter. However, their efforts were in vain because Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice,” the ruling said.
“... Although we are aware of the time, money, and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial due to Hill’s improper external influences on the jury and remand for a new trial.”
The S.C. Supreme Court’s ruling ended months of speculation among true crime fans, lawyers and everyday folks whether Murdaugh’s conviction would be overturned.
It also raised new questions, unanswered as of Wednesday afternoon:
- When will a new trial take place?
- Will Murdaugh’s attorneys or the prosecution ask for a change in venue, or location?
- Who will be the judge? Trial Judge Clifton Newman has retired.
The ruling also overturned an opinion by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, who after a hearing in early 2024 ruled that Hill’s actions vis-a-vis the jury, while improper, were not serious enough to overturn the jury’s guilty verdicts.
And the ruling called into question Newman’s decision to let the jury hear hours of testimony about Murdaugh’s financial crimes. Normally, a jury hearing a criminal case is only allowed to hear evidence about the alleged crime in question.
The state Supreme Court’s decision was the result of a nearly three-hour February hearing about whether jury tampering and improper prosecution evidence about Murdaugh’s financial crimes spoiled his right to a fair trial. At the hearing, justices grilled lead Murdaugh trial prosecutor Creighton Waters with questions so pointed about questionable events during the trial that the severity of the questions themselves led to widespread public speculation that the conviction would be overturned.
Another point of view, now discredited, about that hearing was that the justices would acknowledge the jury tampering, but uphold the verdicts on the grounds that prosecution evidence about Murdaugh’s guilt was so overwhelming that any trial errors amounted to “harmless error.”
Murdaugh, 57, a once wealthy fourth-generation lawyer in his family law firm in Lowcountry Hampton County, is serving two life sentences for murder at a maximum security state prison in McCormick County. Murdaugh was disbarred by the high court in 2022 as evidence about his financial crimes came to light.
Murdaugh, whom the Supreme Court called a “notorious former attorney,” has since pleaded guilty in both state and court to numerous counts of fraud involving stealing from clients and his law firm and is serving multiyear state and federal sentences.
Murdaugh says he is innocent
Murdaugh continues to contend he is innocent of murder and was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and son.
In 2023, Murdaugh was found guilty of two counts of murder for the June 7, 2021, shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on the family’s remote 1,770-acre estate, called Moselle.
In addition to the murder charges, Murdaugh also was convicted of two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime at the end of the March 2023 trial.
Attorney general says Murdaugh will be retried
On Wednesday, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said he would retry Murdaugh on the murder charges.
“While we respectfully disagree with the court’s decision, my office will aggressively seek to retry Alex Murdaugh for the murders of Maggie and Paul as soon as possible,” Wilson said in a news release.
Wilson, who was close to Hill during the trial, affectionately called her “Becky Boo” in front of dozens of reporters at a press conference following the jury’s verdicts. As clerk of court, Hill was responsible to attending to jurors’ needs and helping prosecutors, defense attorneys and the judge with court affairs to make the trial run smoothly.
Wilson is running for governor and was attacked Wednesday after the ruling came out by an opponent, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Charleston. Mace said prosecutors “bungled” the trial.
Murdaugh’s attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, both of Columbia, said a retrial was in order and will be welcomed.
“Alex has said from day one that he did not kill his wife and son. We look forward to a new trial conducted consistent with the Constitution and the guidance this court has provided,” Murdaugh’s attorneys said in a statement sent to news media.
Wilson pointed out that despite the S.C. Supreme Court’s ruling, Murdaugh will remain incarcerated for convictions on other crimes.
“Let me be clear — this decision does not mean Murdaugh will be released,” Wilson said. “He will remain in prison for his financial crimes.”
Murdaugh is currently serving a 27-year sentence in a South Carolina Department of Corrections prison for financial crime convictions. Murdaugh is also serving a concurrent 40-year sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to the financial crimes.
Murdaugh will be in his late 80s or 90s when he’s released from federal prison, if he lives that long.
Road to a retrial
During an October 2023 appeal, Murdaugh sought to file a motion for a new trial because he said that Hill tampered with the jury in multiple ways. Murdaugh contended that Hill:
- Advised the jury not to believe his testimony and other defense evidence
- Pressured the jury to reach a quick guilty verdict
- Misrepresented information to the trial court in an attempt to have the court remove a juror she believed to favor the defense
In the February hearing before the S.C. Supreme Court justices, the prosecution argued the jury convicted Murdaugh “because he was obviously guilty, and not because three jurors heard Hill’s ‘foolish and fleeting’ comments about his upcoming testimony,” Wednesday’s ruling said.
But that wasn’t enough to sway the S.C. Supreme Court justices — a group that includes Chief Justice John Kittredge as well as John Few, George James, D. Garrison Hill and Letitia Verdin.
“We agree with Murdaugh,” the ruling said. “Prejudice is presumed from Hill’s comments, and while this presumption is rebuttable, the State failed to overcome this presumption.”
But the justices were clear about who they found most responsible for this outcome.
“The breathtaking and disgraceful effort of Hill to undermine the jury process is unprecedented in South Carolina,” the ruling said.
Hill resigned her $101,256-a-year clerk of court job In March 2024 after she was charged with obstruction of justice in the leaking of confidential court information to a reporter. Hill later pleaded guilty to perjury and misconduct charges and received probation.
“There is no excuse for my mistakes,” Hill said following her December 2025 conviction. “I am ashamed of them, and I will carry that shame with me for the rest of my life.”
Columbia attorney Will Lewis, who’s Hill’s lawyer, was unavailable Wednesday and unable to comment, his office said.
In its ruling, the S.C. Supreme Court also weighed in on the admissibility of Murdaugh’s financial crimes in the retrial.
Calling it a “thorny issue,” the S.C. Supreme Court said that 12.5 hours of testimony from the original trial on the financial crimes to establish a motive was too much time, and could have been presented “in a fraction of that time,” according to the ruling.
It will be up to the presiding judge at any new trial to decide how much, if any, of the financial crimes evidence to introduce, according to the ruling.
The S.C. Supreme Court’s guidance for the retrial is that if prosecutors seek to reintroduce that evidence it must be done “efficiently without the lengthy presentation of inflammatory details with little to no probative value that was permitted in the first trial,” the ruling said.
Harpootlian and Griffin agreed with that as well.
“We respect the decision that made clear that the retrial must look very different from the first,” Murdaugh’s attorneys said.
“The initial jury heard more than 12 hours of testimony about Alex’s financial crimes. The court held that this evidence went far beyond what was necessary and gave rise to unfair prejudice. On retrial, that will not be permitted.”
The state Supreme Court members who signed the opinion were Chief Justice John W. Kittredge, Justice, John Cannon Few, Justice George C. James Jr., Justice D. Garrison Hill and Justice Letitia H. Verdin.
Trial of the century
Wednesday’s ruling overturned what was popularly called “the trial of the century” began making national news shortly after the opinion was released at 10 a.m.
Murdaugh’s conviction in March 2023 came after a six-week trial that was televised and attracted a worldwide audience of millions on Court TV because of its combination of not only brutal murder but also the naked corruption of a supposedly upstanding South Carolina attorney who stole millions from defenseless clients who had won millions in legal settlements.
Moreover, the case was a whodunit: Murdaugh denied killing his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. Maggie had been killed with an assault rifle; Paul, with a shotgun, leading his lawyers to imply to the jury that there were two killers the night they were killed by dog kennels on the Murdaugh estate.
Untold numbers of newspaper stories, television and cable news reports, documentaries and more than 20 books — including one in French by a French journalist attending the trial — have been written about the case. The latest book, by New Yorker writer, James Lasdun, was released earlier this month. Its title: “The Family Man: Blood and Betrayal in the House of Murdaugh.”
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREThis is a breaking news story
In a breaking news situation, facts can be unclear and the situation may still be developing. The State is trying to get important information to the public as quickly and accurately as possible. This story will be updated as more information becomes available, and some information in this story may change as the facts become clearer. Refresh this page later for more updated information.
This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 10:13 AM with the headline "Murdaugh murder convictions overturned by South Carolina Supreme Court."
